Always an Answer
by NeverIrreverent
Summary: Bri's never been exactly run-of-the-mill, but this is way beyond anything she ever suspected about herself. Recent events have answered a couple of her long-standing questions... but also raised a bunch more. The Avengers plus one will hopefully be able to help her find the answers.


"Look, all I'm saying is that I personally prefer scales to fur! You're acting like I called him the antichrist or something." Bri rolls her eyes, not bothering to hide her irritation. She's already had to deal with a few bitchy customers today (the most notable being a very short older man who mumbled through his order, but had no problem speaking up whilst shouting at her that he had ordered _half_-caf, not _de_caf). Bri is most definitely not in the mood to deal with any more shit right now, but she knows that shit is imminent. After all, it is Mandi.

"But it's a _puppy_," Mandi exclaims, giving the picture on her phone one last simpering smile before slipping the phone in her back pocket, "an adorable, fluffy little puppy! How does your heart not melt at the sight of it?" Then, with a smug look that Bri has learned to expect just before a 'clever' comment, she drawls, "Oh, soooo sorry, I forgot that rocks don't melt."

If there's one thing Bri can't stand, it's being talked down to by someone both shorter and stupider than her (there are actually quite a few things in this world that Bri can't stand, but this one's at the forefront). She bends slightly, putting her hands on her knees to get down to eye level with the other girl, and talks slowly as if to a small child. "Oh really, Mandi? Then what do you call the stuff that comes out of volcanoes?"

After an eyeroll-and-snort combo that makes her look even less attractive than usual, Mandi replies, "That's lava, dumbass."

Bri needs to find another job. Hypertension isn't good for the heart.

She can't help but slam the front door a little when she gets home, which prompts her mother to glance up from her Nicholas Sparks book (Bri cannot for the life of her understand why anyone reads those books) and ask, "Bad day?"

"Yeeeeeeees."

Her mom pats the couch and says in a soothing tone, "Come sit down. Talk. Unwind a little."

As much as she wants to, there's a (much) bigger part of her that wants to make a beeline for her bed and sink into sweet oblivion. "Nah, I'm just gonna go to bed."

"Okay, then... Sweet dreams."

"Thanks, mom."

Now for sleep.

_Something's not right..._

_She's walking along a dark, freezing corridor made entirely of ice, jagged and glistening. The ground is coated with a thin layer of snow that crunches under her feet as she treads upon it, descending ever deeper into the cold and the dark. She knows not why she walks, but still she walks._

_As the corridor plunges, seemingly endless in its length, she begins to be aware of distant, barely audible voices and quickens her pace, wishing to join them, knowing there will be revelry and cheer. The voices grow louder and she smiles at the thought of what lies in store. Louder, louder, until she comes upon a huge door behind which she knows lie the festivities, but when she places her hand upon the knob the voices grow silent. She attempts to turn the knob, but it is locked from the other side._

_Overcome with frustration, a single tear runs across her cheek and falls to the floor. Where it hits the snow, the ground seems to rise before her and take the shape of a mirror. When she gazes upon her own face, a tortured cry escapes her lips as she looks into the eyes of a stranger._

Bri sits up in bed, breathing heavily and scared out of her mind. She jumps up, flicks the lightswitch, and races over to the mirror above her dresser. She stares at herself for a long while, studying the familiar features, running her fingers across forehead, eyes, nose, lips, chin. She knows this face, knows it intimately and completely. So why is it that every time, every single one of the countless times she's had this dream throughout her life, does this exact same face seem so completely alien?

She lets out a deep sigh and shuffles over to the large aquarium tank in the corner of her room. Peering into the enclosure, she's greeted by a pair of eyes and a long, pink, fluttery tongue. The beginnings of a smile appear on her lips as she unscrews the little screwy thingy, slides back the mesh top of the tank, sticks her hand in slowly, and emerges with a 4-foot-long Burmese python.

"Hi there, Lola," she coos as she stands there and lets the snake coil herself around hands and through fingers. Curiously, though, she isn't moving around very much, and Bri notices the dull scales and cloudy eyes. This can only mean one thing...

"You're about to cast your skin, aren't you, my dear?" Her smile grows wider. She loves it when snakes cast their skins. It's so fun to watch, and if you're lucky and they don't end up just leaving a shitload of flakes everywhere, you get a reasonably intact snake husk thing, which is always cool.

Bri heads back in the direction of her bed, snake still in hand, and plops down on the lower right corner of the mattress. That dream... She doesn't think it'll ever leave her alone. She can't remember a time in her life when she's gone more than a month without having that dream. Why can't she shake it off, just dismiss it as a nightmare? Why does it affect her so badly every time?

She's always assumed it stemmed from her being adopted, with the whole not-belonging and not-the-real-me thing. But she loves her mom and dad and brother, loves them just like biological family. Her parents told her when she was 8, when they felt she was old enough to fully understand the concept and not freak the fuck out, and since then everything's been perfectly fine. She doesn't _feel _like there are any lingering psychological issues or something.

_So why do I keep having this damn dream?_


End file.
